Welcome To The Blog That Gives You The Plant Grower's Perspective!

Roses are an iconic landscape plant, but who has the space? Actually, we all do! With the release of several new series of great roses for small spaces, the beauty of landscape roses can be enjoyed by everyone!

Did you know that rainwater runoff contributes to 70% of water pollution? Plants are here to help! A simple installation of a rain garden can remove up to 90% of pollutants from rainwater runoff, not to mention the beauty & biodiversity they provide to the landscape. With rain gardens, everybody wins!

While an art critic would argue that these are not truly red flowers, this deep pink is the closest thing we have to a red hydrangea flower currently on the market. There are two new cultivars in the mix trying to maximize a hydrangea’s red potential. Cherry Explosion was released in 2017 by Star Roses & Plants. Summer Crush™ will be available in garden centers in 2019 as part of Bailey Nurseries’ Endless Summer® collection. With multiple recent releases, red hydrangeas will be a trending topic for consumers in the next few years.

Great might be an understatement. I must confess, I have always been partial to gingko trees. Their leaves are unlike any other tree in the landscape, but the more I learn about ginkgo trees, the more I realize how truly fascinating this tree really is.

This blog post will examine capability of the Hydrangea Lavalamp™ series to excel in a hydrangea saturated market by looking at the expected performance and bloom quality of each variety in the series. For more information regarding these particular varieties of plants, visit www.bloomingeasyplants.com.

In this blog post, I will suggest 5 different plants with excellent fall interest to incorporate into a landscape alongside mums in order to prevent a visually bland fall display of only mums. For more information about these plants visit the Missouri Botanical Gardens website.

Best Practices For Growing Container Plants

Why is my plant dying!!!!???? Ever had this problem? You venture out to your local garden center, not a big-box store (sorry, I had to), and you buy yourself a cute, little container plant. You get a pot, buy fertilizer, and put it all together in the perfect spot in your home. Then it dies. Yes, it dies. After all the love, fertilizer, and water you showered this plant with, it just up and craps out on you. It’s a tale too often told, but I swear, it can be prevented. If you do your research and learn about your plant’s likes/dislikes and requirements, and you follow the basic guidelines I’m about to teach you; you can be spared of this heartache and frustration.

Euonymus fortunei: 'Blondy' vs. 'Moonshadow'

This post is not about a blonde and a rather odd 1970s song by Cat Stevens. It is, rather, a highlighting of two particular varieties under the Euonymus fortunei umbrella. Perhaps you already know how confusing the Euonymus umbrella can be.

Boxwood Green Velvet VS. Boxwood Winter Gem

Green Velvet and Winter Gem Boxwoods are two of the most popular smaller sized evergreens sold in our area. They have many similarities such as: they are both boxwoods, stay small, evergreen, deer resistant, bloom in April, grow about any where, have shallow root systems, hardy in zones 5 – 9, low maintenance, can take heavy pruning, and they both work great planted as hedges or just as single plantings. They have gained in popularity over the last decade because they are just so easy. They can be trimmed or left to grow naturally. They will grow in about any soil but prefer a moist, yet well drained soil. They will grow in sun or shade, but the ideal location would be either a morning sun and afternoon shade or a filtered sun. Both of these varieties are less prone to getting the "bronze" look in winter that many types of boxwood get. If they are in full sun and the temperatures are really cold even these two can get the bronze color. But, if planted in shade they will rarely aquire that coloring.